A refrigerator is an appliance used for storing food at a low temperature and may be configured to store food (or other items) in a frozen state or a refrigerated state. The interior of the refrigerator may be generally divided into a refrigeration compartment and a freezer. The refrigerator includes a heat exchanger configured to supply cold air into the refrigerator.
The inside of the refrigerator is cooled by circulating cold air that can be continuously generated through a heat exchange process by recycling a refrigerant in an heat exchanger. The heat exchanger may include a compressor, a condenser and an evaporator. During operation, the refrigerant goes through repeated cycles of compression, condensation, expansion and evaporation. Cold air supplied into the refrigerator is uniformly distributed by convection. Accordingly, the items stored in the refrigerator can be maintained at a desired low temperature.
The heat exchanger can be installed at one side of the refrigerator and separated from the storage spaces such as the refrigeration compartment and the freezer. For example, the compression and condensation processes may be performed by the compressor and the condenser disposed within a machine located at the lower side of a rear surface of the refrigerator. In an evaporation process, the refrigerant may evaporate and thereby absorb heat from the ambient air. As a result, the ambient air surrounding the evaporator is cooled down.
A main body of the refrigerator may have a rectangular parallel-piped shape with an open front surface. Typically, the main body encloses a refrigeration compartment and freezer, each with its own door. The refrigerator may include a plurality of drawers, shelves, vegetable compartments and the like for sorting and storing different types of items.
Conventionally, top mount type refrigerators were popular, with a freezer located at an upper side and a refrigeration room located at a lower side. Recently, bottom freezer type refrigerators have been developed, where a freezer is located at the lower side. A bottom freezer type refrigerator provides the advantage that a user can conveniently access the refrigerator in general. However, a user often needs to lower down or bend down to access the freezer, e.g., for taking ice from it.
Some bottom freezer type refrigerators have an ice dispenser located at the refrigeration room compartment disposed at the upper side of the refrigerator. An ice-making device for making ice pieces may be disposed on the refrigeration compartment door or inside refrigeration compartment. The ice-making device may include an ice-making unit including an ice tray, and an ice storage part (ice bucket) for storing the ice pieces produced in the ice tray. The ice-making unit is disposed above the ice storage unit.
However, in the related art, a cold air duct or the like is typically located in the space between the inner wall of the ice-making device and the ice-making unit. Thus, the space between the inner wall of the ice-making device and the ice-making unit is not used for production or storage of ice pieces. In other words, in a conventional ice-making device, space usage efficiency is unfortunately low.